Friday, 10 February 2012

Just three minutes after taking this on the road that connects Combo Towers with what passes for civilisation here, I went down like a sack of you-know-what and did my knee. Just where you can see the sign in the distance which, with black humour, reminds motorist to fit snow chains before descending the hill. As I lay in the middle of the road, nearly a mile from home, with both dogs licking my face, I seriously wondered how I was going to get back. No mobile, even the snow plough wasn't due past for a few hours. You hardly see anyone here in the high summer, let alone when it's -5º and snowing. The riiiiiiiiip of something tearing in my leg still echoed around the empty frozen hills. How long oh Lord, I thought, how long?
At the hospital (under three hours for A&E, radiology, orthopedics, A&E again to be dismissed) they said that immediately after an injury like this and when the limb is warm it can work for a while without there being too much pain.
Now the offending leg is wrapped up in one of those Velcro® festooned braces which runs from thigh to foot and which some High Court judges would pay good money to be forced to wear. Next week a scan to see the extent of the damage.
This is the latest in a regular series of visits to the local hospital. Falling off the roof was probably the most spectacular but the rest...metal splinters from splitting logs with an iron wedge that required surgery (twice), dog bites, braining myself on a door lintel (5 stitches), the vegetable slicer (3 stitches), the eye injury clearing a path (machete)....if anyone knows anyone who is more wearily accident-prone than your humble correspondent please do get in touch.
The next visit to A&E could be tomorrow because I will have done my very own personal 40 days of Lent with nary a drop passing my lips so Saturday night will be marked by the consumption of industrial quantities of red wine.
With a bit of luck.

About Me

Abattoir cleaner, railway porter, bread slicer for Mother's Pride,
occasional journalist (review of Lincoln City vs Bury published in the Sunday Express sometime in the early 80s and on the back page to boot), advertising & PR hack, teacher, translator and a former grower of what were the finest tomatoes in Western Europe. Alas alack.